Spokesman: US Seeking Past Policies with New Posture

TEHRAN, June 14 (ICANA) – Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast warned that the US is pursuing the same old policies in the region but with a new face.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 7:54:38 PM

"The US policies are not changed, they want to show a new face in a bid to implement their policies," Mehman-Parast told reporters here in Tehran on Tuesday.

"The US officials are uttering new statements and displaying a new face because they are fearful of the tide of awakening in a number of regional countries and feel the fear that people's struggle to determine their fate and overthrow dictators may eventually unveil that the US and western officials have been the main supporters of these dictators," he continued.

Noting the recent remarks of US President Barack Obama who said that the US is to open a new chapter in American diplomacy in the Middle-East, Mehman-Parast explained that "a new chapter" means that they had created and supported dictators and sponsored them while they were in power.

Speaking at the US State Department on the Middle-East late in May, US President Barack Obama basically restated his policy on the region and promised to open "a new chapter in American diplomacy" in the Mideast and North Africa.

He was responding to the "Arab Spring," the series of mass demonstrations that have ousted regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and are close to it in Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.

Earlier this month, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei cautioned that the US has initiated efforts to hijack popular uprisings in the region and derail the Islamic awakening in the Middle-East and North Africa.

"The United States does not do anything in the interests of regional nations. Whatever they have done so far has been against regional nations," Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing a large crowd of Iranian people at the mausoleum of the late Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, South of Tehran.

The Leader urged Muslim countries to remain vigilant in the face of the western plots.